Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 21, 2020


Ep 303 | Trump vs. Biden 2020: Foreign Policy


Episode Stats

Length

46 minutes

Words per Minute

161.92674

Word Count

7,603

Sentence Count

467


Summary

In this episode, we continue our series on the 2016 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden and look at the differences between their foreign policy positions and what they have done in the past. We also discuss the impact foreign aid has had on the world, and why China is now surpassing the United States in terms of foreign aid.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable.
00:00:11.840 Happy Monday.
00:00:12.840 I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.
00:00:15.540 Today, we are continuing our election series talking about foreign policy.
00:00:20.800 As always, the caveat that I give at the beginning of each episode, I will say today, we are
00:00:27.660 not going to be able to get into all the intricacies of foreign policy, looking at Trump and what
00:00:34.940 he's done and what he promises to do versus Joe Biden, his history and what he promises
00:00:40.380 to do.
00:00:41.200 We will look at the two perspectives.
00:00:42.880 We'll look at as much history as we can, at least the major parts of their foreign policy
00:00:49.300 positions and what they have stood for and what they have done.
00:00:53.140 And at the end of it, you should do your own research.
00:00:57.780 You guys know where I land on this.
00:00:59.840 I am someone who plans to vote for Donald Trump.
00:01:02.140 I voted for Donald Trump in 2016.
00:01:04.720 And so I am not pretending not to have that perspective, but it is never my intention or
00:01:10.780 my desire to mislead you or to leave out information.
00:01:14.860 At the end of this episode, I said I was going to do this last week and then I forgot I'm going
00:01:19.440 to give two points of clarification in regards to previous episodes that I think gives you
00:01:26.640 a fuller picture of some of the things that we have talked about, because like I said, never
00:01:32.260 my desire to mislead or manipulate, even though you know exactly what perspective I'm coming
00:01:38.180 from and what worldview I have.
00:01:40.700 And then I am typically going to land when it's Trump versus Biden.
00:01:44.120 And I'm going to land on the Trumpian side of things, typically, not always, but typically.
00:01:51.320 And so just know that going in, if you are a liberal who is listening to this episode because
00:01:55.760 your friend shared it with you, you know that that is where I am coming from.
00:01:59.640 I appreciate you being here.
00:02:01.180 You're probably going to disagree with me.
00:02:02.780 And that is totally OK.
00:02:04.740 I am glad that you are engaging with a side of things that you don't necessarily see eye
00:02:09.920 to eye on.
00:02:10.440 Like I said, do your own research into all of this, especially when it comes to the intricacies
00:02:15.860 of foreign policy.
00:02:18.020 OK, so America's foreign policy in general, it has at times been messy and at times been
00:02:24.860 too interventionist, at times ineffective and at many times very good, very valiant, very
00:02:30.840 effective and a force for liberty and good throughout the world.
00:02:35.820 And so like all foreign policy, it is complicated.
00:02:39.660 Any anyone, any side that tells you that it has either all been good or all been bad are
00:02:47.040 wrong.
00:02:47.580 And the reality is, is that it's been much more complex than that.
00:02:51.820 There is this anti-American lie that I believe is propagated in public schools and universities
00:02:58.520 that America has been a predominantly force for evil in the world, that all the world's
00:03:04.780 problems are because of American intervention and imperialism.
00:03:08.980 That is a lie that has been pushed by left-wing communist regimes like Soviet Russia, like
00:03:15.080 China, like North Korea for decades.
00:03:16.840 It has infiltrated the institutions in the United States.
00:03:20.340 If you read the book Nothing to Envy that we read together in my book club a few months
00:03:25.300 ago, you might remember that the North Korean government told their people that America
00:03:30.780 and imperialist capitalist Japan were actually to blame for the famine and for the starvation
00:03:37.580 that was going on in North Korea.
00:03:39.280 Of course, that was not true.
00:03:40.960 In reality, America had offered aid to North Korea during their famine.
00:03:45.300 We have traditionally given the most in foreign aid to underdeveloped countries than any other
00:03:50.580 nation by far.
00:03:51.560 Right now, China is actually eclipsing us.
00:03:54.280 And there is a difference, though, between the foreign aid that America offers.
00:03:59.040 And by the way, I am not necessarily for all foreign aid.
00:04:04.520 Foreign aid has been proven to be completely ineffective in actually helping poor countries.
00:04:09.920 I think it was Ron Paul who said that foreign aid comes from poor people in rich countries to
00:04:16.120 rich people in poor countries.
00:04:17.540 So it doesn't actually help the poor people in poor countries.
00:04:20.740 But as far as it goes, America has been the number one giver of foreign aid to developing
00:04:27.280 countries, except for now, China has surpassed us.
00:04:31.180 And the difference between our foreign aid and the Chinese foreign aid is that China is
00:04:35.980 using their so-called foreign aid to put poor countries in debt traps.
00:04:39.840 We've actually talked about this on the podcast before.
00:04:42.760 But just to reiterate, China is legitimately colonizing poor countries as we speak.
00:04:47.460 So they are building, for example, railways in places like Ethiopia, pretending it is out
00:04:54.440 of the goodness of their heart, telling Ethiopia they can pay them back when the railway starts
00:04:59.000 making money, knowing that the railway will not make money.
00:05:02.420 And actually, the system is constructed in a way that it's very difficult to get a ticket
00:05:07.140 on the railway in Ethiopia.
00:05:09.180 They understand this is not going to be some lucrative endeavor.
00:05:13.500 But the reason that they do this is so that Ethiopia will never be able to pay them back.
00:05:17.980 And then they've got the country in what's called a debt trap, and they are able to exert
00:05:21.440 power over them.
00:05:22.820 Things like this are not just happening in Ethiopia, but in other poor countries in Africa
00:05:27.240 and in South America as well.
00:05:29.120 That is how China is exerting its power internationally and has been for several years.
00:05:37.020 And by the way, as we've also talked about on this podcast, just a fun fact, it's kind
00:05:42.840 of an aside, but it's also relevant.
00:05:44.480 And it's going to bring us into the next segment of this conversation.
00:05:47.680 The head of the WHO, the World Health Organization, was the head of public health in Ethiopia, where
00:05:53.900 he covered up a cholera outbreak.
00:05:55.700 So very corrupt guy.
00:05:57.020 He is in cahoots with the president of China to help them cover up China's part in the spread
00:06:03.020 of the coronavirus.
00:06:04.620 And you might ask, why is this?
00:06:06.620 It is because Dr. Tedros of Ethiopia, the head of the WHO, is part of the Communist Party
00:06:13.020 in Ethiopia, and communists always stick together.
00:06:16.080 So the Communist Party of China or the Chinese Communist Party, as well as Dr. Tedros of the
00:06:24.640 WHO, they are in cahoots because they are communist comrades.
00:06:28.860 It's the same reason why the head of the WHO, Dr. Tedros, made Robert Mugabe the goodwill
00:06:36.400 ambassador of the WHO, which at the time caused huge blowback.
00:06:40.700 And he actually it had to be rescinded because of all the pushback that came because Mugabe
00:06:46.120 is such an obviously corrupt and cruel, was a corrupt and cruel communist dictator of Zimbabwe.
00:06:53.680 He drove his country into more poverty than they had ever experienced by taking the farms
00:07:00.220 away from all the white commercial farmers in the name of anti-colonialism and communism
00:07:06.200 and black liberation.
00:07:07.640 And what happened after Mugabe empowered the people, the indigenous people in Zimbabwe to go
00:07:15.460 confiscate the farms or burn down the farms of these white commercial farmers, they confiscated
00:07:21.420 the land, they took the farms, but they were unable to commercially farm in the same way that
00:07:25.680 these other farmers were.
00:07:27.260 And so Zimbabwe spiraled into poverty.
00:07:29.760 They used to be known as the breadbasket of Africa.
00:07:32.600 And now they're one of the poorest countries in Africa.
00:07:36.700 Teachers in Zimbabwe used to make a lot of money.
00:07:39.480 They used to be able to have nice houses, electricity and things like that.
00:07:43.100 Now teachers make about $30 a month in Zimbabwe.
00:07:46.680 And the cost of living is very similar in Zimbabwe to what it is in the United States.
00:07:51.380 That is thanks to the, quote, anti-colonialist and communist revolution of Robert Mugabe.
00:07:57.020 Thankfully, he is an evil dictator that is now a dead evil dictator.
00:08:01.180 And the hope is that Zimbabwe is getting back on the right track.
00:08:04.820 But always in the name of anti-imperialism, in the name of anti-capitalism and colonialism
00:08:09.500 and communism, you see these kinds of left-wing revolutions and they always end in devastation
00:08:15.240 and despair.
00:08:15.920 And you also see a lot of hypocrisy in that too, because Robert Mugabe came to power in
00:08:22.120 the name of giving everyone great and free health care.
00:08:24.760 And what happened?
00:08:25.700 Not only did he not provide that in Zimbabwe's health care system, can't even be called a health
00:08:30.660 care system because it is completely in shambles.
00:08:33.540 Whenever he needed health care, he and his family went to Singapore for their health care.
00:08:37.880 That's actually where he had his end of life care as well in a Singapore hospital.
00:08:43.780 And so the health care system, that communist dictator Robert Mugabe, who the current head
00:08:49.440 of the WHO, Dr. Tedros, tapped as the goodwill ambassador.
00:08:52.940 This is the guy, Robert Mugabe, who promised that he was going to bring health care to Zimbabwe,
00:08:59.200 free health care.
00:09:00.040 And he ended up getting his health care elsewhere and running the country into the ground.
00:09:04.120 So that's who is in charge of the WHO.
00:09:07.580 Those are the kinds of friends that he keeps.
00:09:09.820 That is why he is in bed with the Communist Party of China, because he is a communist.
00:09:13.660 He has lent a hand to other communists.
00:09:15.860 And together, they are they are running the WHO in a way that is contrary to the health
00:09:23.220 and well-being of world health.
00:09:26.760 So that is also another reason why it's a good thing that President Trump pulled out
00:09:31.900 of the WHO.
00:09:33.240 We were giving the most money.
00:09:34.860 America was giving the most money by far to the WHO.
00:09:38.200 Even though China is giving 10 times less than what America was giving, they still had full
00:09:44.900 authority. And so it was it was good for President Trump to pull out of the WHO.
00:09:50.640 It really did not contribute to world health or to American health at all.
00:09:54.600 So the Communist Network is very powerful in the world.
00:09:57.880 It is very interconnected from China to Africa, to South America, to the United States.
00:10:03.600 And it carries corruption and wreaks havoc wherever it goes.
00:10:07.360 It finds an accomplice in America's Democratic Party and a mouthpiece through Black Lives Matter
00:10:12.960 and Antifa. And it's being manifested through the rioting and the looting.
00:10:17.140 I know I've been beating this drum for months now, but I am so desperate for Christians to
00:10:21.900 understand that the so-called movement that is happening right now for so-called racial justice
00:10:27.660 in the United States has nothing to do with racial justice and everything to do with a global
00:10:33.560 move toward anti-capitalism, anti-Westernism, anti-Western rule of law and totalitarianism.
00:10:42.420 And there is no reason whatsoever to give credence to it. And that alone, I think, is a good reason to vote
00:10:50.040 for Donald Trump. Do I believe that the Democratic Party is actively communist? No.
00:10:55.280 But I do think that they support communist organizations like Antifa and Black Lives Matter.
00:11:01.040 I do think that they have communist sympathizers in the Bernie Sanders wing, for sure.
00:11:06.520 Vladimir Lenin said himself that communism is the goal of socialism. And we have people
00:11:12.300 outright saying in the Democratic Party that they are socialists. Of course, we know that Bernie
00:11:17.500 Sanders honeymooned in Soviet Russia. You know, the communist place with the gulags and the bread
00:11:23.600 lines and the starvation and the killing of political dissidents and religious persecution.
00:11:28.640 He's praised Fidel Castro, the dictator of Cuba that ran his once very vibrant and relatively wealthy
00:11:35.740 country into the ground with socialism. So even though I don't think that Joe Biden is himself
00:11:41.400 a socialist or a communist, I don't want to vote for the party that is sympathetic to communism.
00:11:48.460 That is why it was good, again, for the president to make a stance and has made a stand multiple
00:11:53.460 times against China and against the WHO. It is an interconnected, corrupt, far left wing network
00:12:02.540 that is globally trying to orchestrate destabilization in democracies that they think
00:12:10.560 threaten them. And unfortunately, it is being accomplished pretty effectively here.
00:12:16.280 So Trump's decision to get out of the WHO was one good, kind of seemingly insignificant,
00:12:33.880 but I actually think pretty significant step in kind of repudiating that network and their power and
00:12:41.260 their corruption. Joe Biden has said he would re-enter the WHO, saying that we are actually
00:12:46.140 safer that way. But again, there is no proof that we're safer that way that is sending our
00:12:50.300 taxpayer dollars to an organization that in many ways works directly against us and for the interests
00:12:56.520 of China. This is an organization that is helping organize and fund, along with Planned Parenthood
00:13:02.040 International and UNESCO, the sex education that I talked about a couple of weeks ago with
00:13:07.880 Jacobians that is encouraging children to learn about things like gender fluidity and masturbation
00:13:14.260 as young as kindergarten. It's not a good organization. We don't get a whole lot of benefit
00:13:19.660 from it, if anything at all. And yet Joe Biden would like us to re-enter and to continue funding it with
00:13:25.560 our taxpayer dollars. Joe Biden, in my opinion, in general, is soft on China. He infamously said a few
00:13:32.400 months ago in front of a crowd, I think it was before the Iowa caucus, quote, come on, man, they're
00:13:38.100 not bad folks, folks. China is not going to eat our lunch. However, James Clapper, the director of
00:13:44.680 national intelligence in the Obama-Biden administration, called China, quote, the greatest moral
00:13:49.780 threat to the United States. James Clapper is not right about everything, but he is, of course,
00:13:55.000 right about that. We know this. This is not a political opinion. It's just a fact. We have never had
00:14:01.280 a communist, officially atheist, totalitarian regime this powerful in the world. This is what
00:14:07.440 happens when you combine communism with highly regulated and highly lucrative capitalism. You get
00:14:13.820 power hungry, evil regimes. In February, when Trump banned travel from China due to the coronavirus,
00:14:19.920 Biden called him xenophobic. There's another thing that I think is troubling in Biden's relationship
00:14:24.740 with China. His son, Hunter, owns 10 percent of a private equity firm in China called Bohai Harvest
00:14:30.880 RST Equity Investment Fund Management Co. According to the Wall Street Journal, quote,
00:14:36.860 in the U.S., BHR, that is this private equity firm that Hunter Biden has a stake in, BHR partners
00:14:44.360 participated in a $600 million buyout of Michigan Automotive Suspension Systems maker
00:14:50.700 Hennigas Automotive in 2015, acquiring a 49 percent stake. But a banker involved in the deal said
00:14:57.180 negotiations were handled primarily by Aviation Industry Corporation of China, a state-owned
00:15:02.780 aircraft company that bought a 51 percent stake. Also, according to the WSJ, quote,
00:15:10.820 Hunter Biden has had other ties with China, including with top executives of a now collapsed
00:15:15.540 Shanghai oil company, CEFC China Energy Co., as they were trying to break into the U.S. energy market,
00:15:22.460 according to articles in The New Yorker and The New York Times. J. Michael Cole, a Taiwan-based
00:15:28.200 analyst who has written critically about CEFC and wrangled with it legally, says its lawyers
00:15:33.600 repeatedly described the Biden family as friends of the oil company. So Joe Biden has talked about
00:15:39.680 bringing jobs back from China and confronting the Chinese threat. But you have to wonder if his soft
00:15:45.100 rhetoric towards them, his inability to criticize their handling of the coronavirus,
00:15:50.160 his promise to get back into the WHO and his sons and possibly his whole family's partnership with
00:15:56.340 a Chinese company makes him weak in this regard. I personally think that it does. And just a little
00:16:02.460 bit more on China and the CCP, just so we understand the threat that they pose and why it is so important
00:16:08.860 to have a leader and to have an administration that understands this threat.
00:16:24.120 As we've talked about many times on this podcast, the CCP is one of the most and not the most heartless,
00:16:30.320 cruel, racist, deceitful regimes on the planet. They currently employ slave labor to make their
00:16:35.980 products. They currently have over one million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps where they
00:16:41.440 use them for slave labor, where they harvest their organs to be sold, where the women are having
00:16:47.200 forced abortions and forced sterilization procedures. The New York Times reported a few
00:16:53.140 months ago that China was evicting African immigrants and refusing to let them dine in restaurants over
00:16:58.420 totally unfounded fears of them being super carriers of the coronavirus. The CCP covered up the truth
00:17:04.660 about the coronavirus with the help of the WHO from November to February, potentially costing hundreds
00:17:11.280 of thousands of lives. This is from Newsweek quote, according to a study published by the University
00:17:17.320 of Southampton, the spread of COVID-19 could have been reduced by an astounding 95%. If only China had
00:17:24.920 acted to curb the epidemic a mere three weeks earlier than it did a crucial window of opportunity
00:17:30.120 that the communist regime squandered by trying to cover up its emergence. We still don't know where
00:17:36.320 exactly the virus came from. That's just the truth. That's not a conspiracy theory. The CCP jailed and
00:17:42.620 killed doctors and whistleblowers who have tried to speak out about this. This is a regime that punishes
00:17:48.200 political dissent with imprisonment and death. They spy on each and every citizen that they have. There is no
00:17:54.180 freedom there. There's no freedom of religion. There's no freedom of speech. The Daily Wire reported a few
00:17:59.860 weeks ago that the CCP is going into rural areas in China and forcing Christians to renounce their
00:18:05.560 faith. This is not a regime that cares at all and actually feels very threatened by any kind of
00:18:13.580 personal liberty. As parts of the regime have said, their biggest threat is not technological or a military
00:18:21.780 threat at all, but is an ideological threat. That is why they have taken the efforts that they have
00:18:28.040 to exact power because liberalization or the democratization of society is a big threat to
00:18:35.000 the Communist Party. They reestablished control over Hong Kong, the city that had been operating
00:18:39.760 independently as a democracy under the Western rule of law since, I believe, 1997. And they jailed and
00:18:47.000 likely executed pro-democracy demonstrators and activists in relation to the Hong Kong demonstrations.
00:18:53.520 These are demonstrators who, by the way, were waving the American flag in solidarity with freedom.
00:19:00.540 And you actually have the audacity of groups like BLM and Antifa activists here saying that we don't live
00:19:06.960 in a free society. They're waving the communist flag and in some cases, even the Chinese flag at their
00:19:12.480 demonstrations. And in some cases, the Pan-African flag, which is actually not a symbol of African pride, but a symbol
00:19:20.400 of communist resistance. As we've talked about, China has tweeted out in support of Black Lives Matter
00:19:25.960 and the George Floyd riots. They understand that BLM is stoking the flames of division and
00:19:31.720 destabilization, and that is what they want. I have talked about many times, suggested the voluntary
00:19:37.960 Hong Kong exchange program, HKX, between the communists here and the freedom lovers in Hong Kong.
00:19:43.360 I'm ready for it. I think that it could be crowdfunded in a heartbeat. It's really amazing.
00:19:49.900 Everything the left says they hate slavery, bigotry, racism, discrimination, colonialism,
00:19:54.920 imperialism, misogyny. It's represented by the Chinese Communist Party. And yet it is consistently
00:20:01.100 and almost exclusively being criticized by conservatives. The right is consistently the
00:20:08.260 ones that are sounding the alarm about it. Democrats said from the beginning of the pandemic that it's
00:20:14.740 xenophobic to talk about where the virus came from. Sarah Zhang of the New York Times wrote an article
00:20:20.880 arguing that the CCP and the United States are actually morally equivalent, which is absurd considering
00:20:26.620 if she wrote a similar article as a Chinese citizen in China, she would currently be in a dungeon. So
00:20:32.780 there's the difference there, Sarah Zhang. But I will say that the United States helped put
00:20:37.960 China in the powerful position that they are in today. The first 20 years of foreign relations in
00:20:43.680 China or with China involved bringing them from obscurity to the international community, helping
00:20:50.040 make them a key player. Then America realized at about the turn of the century that, oh, this is
00:20:55.700 this is not going to work out. Not only have they become powerful, but they have remained largely
00:21:01.560 totalitarian. They still are committing these human rights abuses. And they simply figured out
00:21:07.820 how to harness the power of capitalism to get rich without actually letting go of the communist
00:21:14.520 nature of their regime. America, including my beloved President Reagan, who is quoted right here,
00:21:22.500 if you are watching on YouTube, believed that if China embraced capitalism, then they would embrace
00:21:29.940 freedom, then they would embrace Westernism, they would embrace democracy, they would become more
00:21:35.860 accepting of the Western rule of law. But that has not happened, especially over the past decade.
00:21:42.420 When Trump came in, his concern was and is that China is taking advantage of America economically,
00:21:49.300 they're stealing our intellectual property, which is true. He decided that tariffs on trade and sanctions
00:21:55.340 would be a good way to punish China to make trade fair and to make sure that they are no longer taking
00:22:01.600 advantage of us. This is according to foreign policy dot com, which I think is a pretty fair
00:22:07.080 source. Quote, Beijing's actions make it increasingly difficult to talk about cooperation after years of
00:22:12.740 predatory Chinese cyber attacks on U.S. businesses and individuals or in the face of rampant death of
00:22:18.400 intellectual property, much of which comes from China and costs American businesses up to six hundred
00:22:23.600 billion dollars a year. Despite promises by Beijing to halt such practices, broken promises not to
00:22:30.480 militarized territory in the South China Sea have shifted the balance of power in one of the world's
00:22:35.080 most strategic waterways. And Beijing's intimidation of Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam and other countries in
00:22:41.140 the region has increased with its military power. Similarly, Beijing's recent so-called wolf warrior
00:22:46.720 diplomacy personified by Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian abandoned diplomatic niceties for
00:22:53.460 rhetorically aggressive and threatening browbeating. That Beijing considers itself to be in a strategic
00:22:58.360 position with the United States is made clear in major speeches by Xi in which competition with
00:23:04.400 the Western capitalist system forms the core of the CCP's worldview. And it has for a very long time
00:23:11.800 pursuing what previous presidents have called, quote, fair trade. The Trump administration challenged
00:23:17.860 longstanding tenants of the free trade school. The administration has also taken actions to limit Chinese
00:23:23.420 companies access to American markets or technology. Most notably, it has blocked away from being able to
00:23:31.060 purchase U.S. semiconductor chips and banned it from the American 5G market while preventing both
00:23:37.480 while preventing them from selling equipment to U.S. to the U.S. government purchasers. In March,
00:23:44.640 Washington limited the number of Chinese journalists allowed to operate in the United States for state run
00:23:49.240 media outlets to 100 in response to expulsions of U.S. reporters and increasing restrictions in China.
00:23:55.320 The government also shortened work visas for Chinese journalists, reflecting visa restrictions on
00:24:01.120 foreign journalists imposed by Beijing. In May, the administration announced plans to cancel educational
00:24:06.180 visas for Chinese graduate students linked to People's Liberation Army schools and institutes after years of
00:24:12.040 widespread concerns, reports and arrests for theft of intellectual property and material from U.S.
00:24:18.840 University research labs. So that is just part of what Trump has done to push back against Chinese
00:24:26.480 manipulation. Trump has been very clear also in blaming originally at least China for the coronavirus
00:24:33.880 and their mishandling. He has not shied away from calling it what it is and saying where it came from.
00:24:39.480 As usual, he is rejecting political correctness, which I think is very important when it comes to foreign
00:24:45.200 policy and assessing security threats. China has long been engaged also in spreading misinformation
00:24:52.460 and disunity in the United States through propaganda, especially in regards to elections. Now,
00:24:59.200 they have currently the the platform of Twitter and Facebook to do that. The New York Times reported
00:25:05.680 in June that Twitter had to remove almost 24,000 accounts engaging in a Chinese disinformation campaign
00:25:12.020 directed toward the United States in relation to the Hong Kong protests and the coronavirus. Russia has
00:25:17.680 also long been engaged for about a century in similar tactics, stoking racism and division. Russia,
00:25:24.500 again, a country still soft towards socialism and leftism, has very similar goals to China in regards to the
00:25:30.800 United States, which is destabilization. The difference is Russia is a tiny country with a tiny economy.
00:25:38.540 China is not. A China takeover of the world should terrify everyone because it is actually
00:25:44.060 possible, which is exactly why the connections that Joe Biden has and the attitude that he has shown
00:25:50.480 towards China are so troubling. A U.S. intelligence report showed that China and Iran want Biden to win
00:25:57.600 and Russia wants Trump to win. And they are using disinformation online to help accomplish those goals.
00:26:03.080 But I'm just not I'm not worried about China or I'm not worried about Russia in the same way that
00:26:08.920 I'm worried about China. I do think that we should also be worried at least somewhat about Iran.
00:26:16.500 Iran, actually, I think it's the correct way to pronounce it. Biden and Obama engaged in,
00:26:21.580 as you guys probably know, the Iran nuclear deal, a deal that directly aided and abetted their terrorist
00:26:27.420 regime. Basically, the deal said, Iran, you will allow international inspectors to hold you
00:26:33.400 accountable by checking your nuclear weapon sites to make sure that you are not building these nuclear
00:26:38.700 weapons. And in exchange, we will lift the sanctions. And when we lift the state sanctions, that will take
00:26:45.800 all the money that was frozen in banks because of these sanctions, and it will funnel it to you up to
00:26:52.480 about one hundred and forty five billion dollars. So up to one hundred and forty five billion dollars
00:26:58.080 through the world's leading terrorist regime in exchange for some inspections. And we don't actually
00:27:04.920 know for sure or we didn't know for sure how comprehensive or how accurate those inspections would
00:27:11.460 be. Critics accurately said that lifting the sanctions and allowing this kind of money to flow to
00:27:18.400 Iran will help fund Iran's other military capabilities and allow them to continue to fund
00:27:24.200 proxy terrorist groups in other parts of the world like Hezbollah. And the deal only focused on nuclear
00:27:31.140 weapons, so not their missile program, which was obviously largely misguided. As the leader of Israel
00:27:37.500 said at the time, Benjamin Netanyahu, quote, in the coming decade, the deal will reward Iran, the terrorist
00:27:43.760 regime with hundreds of billions of dollars. This cash bonanza will fuel Iran's terrorism worldwide,
00:27:50.780 its aggression in the region and its efforts to destroy Israel, which are ongoing. That is exactly
00:27:56.480 correct. This is from an article in The Atlantic from 2018, quote, it was surely Barack Obama's profound
00:28:03.620 aversion to the use of American military power that so enfeebled his nuclear diplomacy and made his atomic
00:28:09.860 accord with Iran the worst arms control agreement since the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. Obama was, to borrow
00:28:18.600 from the New York Times, as Roger Cohen, America's first, quote, post-Western president, a man deeply
00:28:24.700 uncomfortable with American hegemony and the essential marriage of diplomacy and force. So that is who Obama was.
00:28:32.740 He believed in peace, so-called peace, through acquiescence, peace through weakness, leading from
00:28:39.720 behind. You might recall people talking about his universal apology tour beginning when he took office,
00:28:46.160 apologizing for American strength and American force, even when it was obviously necessary.
00:28:51.920 He was incredibly weak on foreign policy. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Joe Biden,
00:28:57.940 his vice president, would be any different when he becomes president. The Obama-Biden administration
00:29:02.400 empowered Iran and were totally unwilling to curb Iranian aggression in the Middle East. That is
00:29:08.060 exactly why Iran wants Biden to win. Trump has called the Iran deal the worst deal ever negotiated,
00:29:14.320 and he is probably right about that. That's why he pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018,
00:29:20.180 reenacting the sanctions on Iran. According to the WSJ, quote, Secretary of State Pompeo said in a
00:29:27.540 statement that the U.S. would use sanctions to isolate Iran diplomatically and economically while
00:29:33.860 working with allies to replace the Iran accord with a comprehensive and lasting solution to the Iranian
00:29:41.960 threat. Is Iran happy about this? No. Are many in the global community who had the same foreign policy
00:29:50.260 mindset as Obama did happy about this? No. But it's Israel, our ally, and other pro-democracy advocates,
00:29:57.920 are they happy about this? Very much yes. And that is what matters. America and her allies have an
00:30:04.080 interest in preventing the destabilization of the region, and President Trump has worked hard to do that.
00:30:10.920 Not just by getting out of the Iran nuclear deal, but also through his historic peace deals,
00:30:16.140 which you have probably read about recently. He has led the negotiations of two peace deals between
00:30:22.960 two Arab states, the UAE and Bahrain and Israel. The Arab world hates Israel. They want to destroy
00:30:31.180 Israel. They have for a very long time. And Trump, as a huge defender of Israel throughout his presidency,
00:30:36.940 has sought at least to do what he can to rectify that. According to the Washington Post, quote,
00:30:43.680 The United States, Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain all signed the Abraham Accords, named for the three
00:30:49.900 Abrahamic religions rooted in what is now Israel and surrounding lands. That lays the ground for
00:30:54.980 diplomatic, economic, and other ties between Israel and the Persian Gulf neighbors. The two Arab states
00:31:00.980 then signed bilateral agreements with Israel. In addition to their historic nature, the agreements are
00:31:08.040 also significant for relegating the Palestinians to the sidelines. Palestinian leaders have
00:31:13.600 rejected the Trump peace efforts for three years, charging that they benefited Israel and have
00:31:19.060 called the two Arab nations traitors to their cause. Neither the UAE or Bahrain is or ever has been
00:31:28.900 at war with Israel. So the documents are not peace treaties in the formal sense. But until now, both
00:31:34.860 Persian Gulf states had officially considered Israel to be illegitimate. So these are a big deal.
00:31:41.660 You've got some people on the left, particularly on leftist Twitter saying, oh, they were never at
00:31:46.340 war. So these treaties aren't significant. They're basically saying, actually, the Middle East has
00:31:51.380 always been very peaceful. It's always been very kind towards Israel. This is just a sham. This is just
00:31:56.960 a distraction. It's really it's really a shame they see possible potential moves towards peace in the
00:32:03.780 Middle East as just a sham and a distraction instead of something to celebrate. This goes far beyond
00:32:09.600 Trump, and it transcends politics. This should be something that everyone who has a humanitarian bone
00:32:15.200 in their body is excited about. Trump also, as we know, moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,
00:32:21.720 which recognizes Jerusalem as the official capital because it is Democrats in America. Some of them,
00:32:28.020 I think Chuck Schumer was for it because he is Jewish. But Democrats, other Democrats in America
00:32:34.320 said that this was a horrible move. It's going to destabilize. It's going to be catastrophic.
00:32:39.300 It wasn't, which is good. It should have actually happened a long time ago, but it was put off by
00:32:44.540 Clinton and Bush and Obama. So Trump simply did what a president a long time ago should have done.
00:32:50.840 Israel is our ally. Trump has had their back. Trump has pursued peace that would benefit not just
00:32:56.760 Israel, but the region in general. The Bible is very clear about this. I think it's Psalm 34,
00:33:01.720 that says specifically we should seek peace and pursue it. And I think Trump has done that through
00:33:07.100 his actions pretty well while he's been president. He tried to do the same thing by denuclearizing
00:33:13.380 North Korea. Trump was the first president to enter North Korean territory and meet with the North Korean
00:33:18.640 leader. Now, a couple of things. Number one, that didn't work out. I do think A for effort. Good job.
00:33:24.500 I'm not sure many other leaders have even tried that. There is this kind of myth that China is
00:33:31.600 going to help us denuclearize North Korea. That's just not going to happen because I don't think
00:33:36.380 China really cares about that at all. I don't think they're worried about the threat of North
00:33:40.160 Korea. But Trump did try, ultimately did not succeed in creating a denuclearized North Korea or the
00:33:50.260 promise of a denuclearized North Korea. I think it's good that he pursued it. But I'll be honest,
00:33:58.680 I don't like how friendly Trump is toward Kim Jong-un. He has complimented him many times as
00:34:05.280 well as the president of China, as well as Putin of Russia. And while I know that you can say that
00:34:10.280 his rhetoric is strategic, that it's all part of the plan, that it's just what you do, you have to
00:34:14.500 butter up these people so you can work with them. I'm just not sure it's necessary. I don't think it's
00:34:19.520 a good look. I think American strength is persuasive enough. I don't like the flattery of dictators
00:34:25.120 that Trump has engaged in on Twitter. I'm not going to lie. It was also a little triggered
00:34:29.540 during these talks with Kim Jong-un to see the American flag, which represents a beacon of liberty
00:34:36.340 next to the North Korean flag, which represents deep and profound and prolonged oppression of the
00:34:44.180 North Korean people for decades now, if not longer than that. And so that was a little bit hard for me
00:34:51.240 to see. I don't necessarily think that we need to symbolize or communicate any kind of partnership,
00:34:56.460 even in the pursuit of peace. I do think that his actions are worth giving more credence to,
00:35:02.740 of course, than what he says on Twitter. But I'm not going to pretend like I like it because I don't.
00:35:08.040 These are regimes who have slaughtered and starved and tortured and arbitrarily detained their people.
00:35:13.980 And so I don't even think we need to offer the pretense of getting along with them or respecting
00:35:19.140 them. However, I am glad for the actions of the Trump administration. According to the Brookings
00:35:24.160 Institute, the Trump admin has employed 52 policy actions against Russia, including a variety of
00:35:30.580 sanctions for election interference and human rights abuses. And actions do speak louder than words.
00:35:36.360 They should. And if you want to talk about rhetoric towards Russia and being soft towards Russia,
00:35:41.720 you can recall in 2012 when Obama was sitting down next to the then president of Russia, Dmitry
00:35:50.580 Mevdev. I'm not totally sure how to pronounce his last name. And he sat there and he said, you know,
00:35:58.000 this is my last election that's coming up. And after this next election, I will have, quote,
00:36:02.740 more flexibility to work with you in a way that, you know, I want to work with you, particularly when it
00:36:07.100 comes to things like missile defense. So let's not pretend also that Trump is the only one that has
00:36:12.680 engaged with this in this kind of in this kind of flattery towards dictators, because Obama certainly
00:36:19.320 did, too. And let's not also pretend that Obama and Biden ushered in peace and Trump hasn't or
00:36:27.720 something like that. This is according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, quote,
00:36:32.280 There were 10 times more airstrikes in the covert war on terror during President Barack Obama's
00:36:38.300 presidency than under his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama embraced the U.S. drone program,
00:36:43.940 overseeing more strikes in his first year than Bush carried out during his entire presidency.
00:36:49.020 A total of 563 strikes largely by drones targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen during Obama's two terms
00:36:55.880 compared to 57 strikes under Bush. Between 384 and 807 civilians were killed in those
00:37:02.160 countries, according to reports logged by the Bureau, which is not good. However, I will say
00:37:07.160 that unlike Bush and Obama, Trump has not gotten us into any more wars. But the drone strikes under
00:37:16.140 Trump have continued. Unfortunately, civilians have continued to be killed. And reportedly, it has
00:37:23.780 actually become harder under the Trump administration to know how many civilians have been killed. I don't
00:37:29.100 think that's a good thing. That's something that I would disagree with. There has to be accountability
00:37:32.920 there. I'm not saying Trump has purposely tried to, you know, order the military to kill these civilians
00:37:38.900 by any means. But I do think that that accountability, which has apparently become harder under the Trump
00:37:45.240 administration, that that accountability needs to be reinstated. However, like I said, I do think that
00:37:53.560 Trump has pursued peace in a way that other presidents have not in a way that Biden and Obama did not. And
00:37:59.540 therefore, I don't think Biden will. Do I think Trump is perfect on this? No, I don't. But has he done a good
00:38:06.400 job? Yes, I do think so. Trump has showed strength where needed. Remember, we talked about this a couple weeks
00:38:12.980 ago when we were discussing the RNC. It was his administration that launched Operation Kayla Mueller, named after the
00:38:19.280 American humanitarian worker who was kidnapped by ISIS under the Obama administration. She was ignored. Her family
00:38:26.400 was ignored by the Obama administration while she was repeatedly raped, tortured and eventually murdered. It was the
00:38:34.460 Trump administration who ordered Operation Kayla Mueller, who killed the Islamic State leader who was ultimately
00:38:40.260 responsible for Kayla Mueller's kidnapping and torture Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He was a vicious terrorist that Obama allowed to live in
00:38:49.020 and Trump did not. Trump also helped, as we know, severely weaken ISIS. Obama and Biden did not. I also think the
00:38:56.720 Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is excellent at his job. I'm a big fan of him. He is a Christian. He sees global
00:39:03.280 threats. I think, realistically, he has prioritized peace through strength. He has prioritized religious liberty.
00:39:09.140 So I think that his administration, for the most part, has helped him accomplish good deals and good foreign policy in a way that has helped the United States. Biden, I think we can tell from his record, will lead from behind. Peace through acquiescence, just like Obama did. And peace is in scare quotes. Trump believes in peace through strength. And I think we know which one works better.
00:39:35.520 Remember, under Obama, Biden's and Hillary Clinton's leadership, Benghazi happened where four American soldiers died. And Clinton and Susan Rice deceptively blamed it on a YouTube video that criticized the regime. The Republican-led investigation into the incident found that the Obama administration had been slow in their response and misled the public on what happened and why.
00:39:57.520 And so, no, I don't think that Obama's record on foreign policy was good. I think Trump's is not perfect, but very good reason enough to trust him to put the well-being and the interests of America first. And some people are triggered by that phrase, America first. But that is exactly what every leader is called to.
00:40:18.400 Every good leader is supposed to prioritize above all else, the safety and the welfare and the interests of their country. I think that has been Trump's mission from the beginning. And I think he has accomplished that pretty well. Again, not perfectly, but pretty well. And I think his foreign policy record in general speaks to that.
00:40:38.040 I have no reason to think that Biden would be able to accomplish the same things. I have no reason to think that he would put America first. I'm especially concerned with his softness towards China. He has said some good things like severing our dependence on China for jobs.
00:40:58.940 I just have no reason based on his record to believe that that's true. And considering the current state of the Democratic Party and their feelings towards China and the Chinese Communist Party and their sensitivity towards xenophobia and their embracing of political correctness when it comes to calling out the Chinese Communist Party in regards to the coronavirus.
00:41:22.560 I think that's just a bad indicator of where Biden would be in our relationship with China. We need to be strong against them. And we need a president who is going to stand firm against the injustices that they are perpetuating both at home and abroad. So that's where I am on all of that. I hope that was clarifying, at least partly for some of you. There's so much more to talk about in regards to the subjects, but we just don't have the time and capacity.
00:41:50.520 Now, I do want to make some clarifying points that I promised I would make. Number one, you guys listened to the episode with Jocko Buyans. Amazing. He's an amazing person. I recommend that you follow him and support his work. Now, we talked about that Barack Obama, that no president before President Trump had done anything to combat human trafficking, that no president had actually acknowledged that this was a problem and we're going to do something about it.
00:42:15.320 Well, under Barack Obama, there was an executive order in 2012 that directed forces against human trafficking and prosecutions of human traffickers actually did increase under Obama.
00:42:29.440 And so I do think it's important to note that now. Was the executive order effective? Was it really just empty rhetoric? I'm not totally sure. Certainly, it wasn't talked about as much under Barack Obama.
00:42:42.780 But I just wanted to clarify, even though I think it's very clear that President Trump has done much more in the fight against human trafficking, I don't think from what I can see that it's true that President Obama did nothing and never acknowledged it because there was that executive order in 2012.
00:42:58.880 And so go look into that and see what you think about that. But I just wanted to make that clear. The second thing is that we talked about abortion in the first election series episode that we did.
00:43:12.160 And unfortunately, funding for Planned Parenthood has continued and even increased over the past few years while Trump has been president.
00:43:19.640 Now, that is not Trump's fault per se. And I still believe that the Republican Party is the sole pro-life party.
00:43:27.940 Again, if you're just listening to this for the first time and you're thinking, no, they're not pro-all life.
00:43:33.440 The Democratic Party is pro-all life. I have busted that myth several times on this podcast.
00:43:38.420 And so you can go back and you can listen to that. But I will say, once again, as I've said before, the Republican Party has failed in large part to defund Planned Parenthood.
00:43:49.480 President Trump did a really good thing by making a regulation in regards to Title 10 that kind of convinced Planned Parenthood to pull out of Title 10.
00:43:59.160 So they were no longer getting Title 10 funds. I think it was about 60 million dollars.
00:44:03.020 And so that is great and that is wonderful. But the defunding has not happened under President Trump, and it should.
00:44:11.980 Again, I think it's worse under the Democrats. They are going to make sure that Planned Parenthood gets Title 10 funds.
00:44:18.180 Not only that, but they will reverse the Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment says that your and my federal tax dollars cannot directly fund abortion.
00:44:25.440 Joe Biden has already said that he wants to repeal that.
00:44:27.540 So our tax dollars will, our federal tax dollars will directly fund abortion.
00:44:32.820 We have seen from Democratic legislation throughout the country that they want abortion to be unregulated through nine months.
00:44:40.080 That's just true. You can look at the Illinois Reproductive Health Act.
00:44:43.100 You can look at the New Mexico Reproductive Health Act.
00:44:46.220 You can look at the New York Reproductive Health Act.
00:44:52.780 And that is exactly what they do. They make it as unregulated as possible.
00:44:57.460 They strip an unborn child of human status and to make sure that the child doesn't have human rights and doesn't have any protection under the law.
00:45:06.840 That is the current Democratic Party.
00:45:09.260 So even though funding for Planned Parenthood has gone up under President Trump, which I think is a travesty, by the way,
00:45:15.120 and is avoidable, is avoidable by way of Republican action, I still think that voting for a Republican is a vote for the lives of unborn children.
00:45:28.740 If you want to go back and listen to that episode on abortion, just go back a few weeks and you can listen to that.
00:45:33.760 Talked about this subject probably more than any other subject.
00:45:36.400 It's very near and dear to me. But I did want to make that clear to you.
00:45:40.320 I did want to make that clear to you that it's not that everything has, you know, the pro-life cause has just been championed unapologetically and unconditionally and beautifully and enthusiastically under Republican leadership,
00:45:53.360 because that's just unfortunately not the case.
00:45:57.220 So those are the two clarifications that I wanted to give.
00:45:59.680 I hope that helps you guys and reminds you that my hope is for the truth, even though you guys know I'm coming from a certain perspective.
00:46:09.920 My desire is to never mislead you.
00:46:12.360 So that's all I have to say about that.
00:46:14.160 We will be back here on Wednesday.
00:46:27.220 Thank you.